1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of providing recorded audio messages for telecommunications, systems and, more particularly, to apparatuses and methods using the Internet to remotely order, create, edit, review, approve and download audio messages to be recorded for reproduction.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
The first installed telephone systems had single lines provided to separate locations. Even in the case of business establishments, such single-line installations were the normal practice, when telephone systems were first being installed, despite the fact that only one incoming call could be received at a time, or alternatively, only one outgoing call could be made at a time using a single line. In the case of home telephone installations such single-line arrangements, even today, have been found predominately adequate. Now, homeowners, though, are beginning to have more lines installed as different types of telecommunications equipment beyond telephones, e.g., telecopy machines and modem equipped computers, are being installed and operated in their homes.
Despite the many decades through which single telephone line installations in homes were found adequate, such single-line installations for businesses were found early on to be inadequate. Beginning early in the history of telephone service, as more telephones were installed in homes and businesses, the numbers of incoming and outgoing calls to and from businesses proportionately increased. Unavoidably, as business telephone call traffic increased, those that were trying to reach businesses would often encounter busy lines, and, therefore, the caller would have to hang up and try to call later, or not call back at all, which raised the possibility of lost business. To avoid losing customers, businesses found it necessary to have multiple lines installed to their offices as more and more of those businesses increased the volume of business transacted by telephone.
In actuality, the installation of multiple lines only provided a partial solution of the problem; namely, it addressed the problem of technically being able to have multiple telephone conversations at the same time from one location. However, installation of multiple lines alone is not a complete solution because the early rudimentary telephone systems involved each line terminating with a separate telephone and that telephone being connectable to other system telephones by a separate designated circuit, i.e., telephone number. These consequences of multiple linesxe2x80x94namely separate multiple telephones and associated telephone numbersxe2x80x94unavoidably result in, at the very least, inefficiencies for the affected businesses. Ideally each business wants to have only one telephone number that customers have to remember and use to conduct business with that company, and businesses do not necessarily need each line to terminate with a different telephone set.
The solution that was developed to overcome these problems is a specialized switching system, installed at the business locations, that takes multiple outside lines as inputs and outputs a single line to a connected telephone or outputs a number of lines to a corresponding number of telephones. The switching system, which in its early embodiments utilized electromechanical technology, connects one outside line at a time to a connected telephone, and, depending on the order in which incoming calls are received, assigns each call to the next available line using a method called a hunt group, i.e., a roll-over process. Such a switching system installed at a business with multiple input outside lines, which is called a key service unit, enables that business to have one telephone number and to thereby simultaneously receive as many incoming calls as there are lines provided to the key service unit without a caller encountering a busy signal. Of course someone using a telephone connected to a key service unit could use one of those outside lines that is not being used for a previously made incoming call to make an outgoing call.
With the rapid acceptance and utilization of telephones that occurred in the business world, it did not take long for key service units to be installed for use by at least the number of telephones as there were occupied offices at a business location. Businesses further adopted systems whereby one of the telephones connected to the key service unit would, during business hours, be operated by a receptionist who would answer every incoming call and either connect a caller to a telephone on which a company employee could have a conversation with the caller or connect the caller to a shunt circuit, which became known as a music-on-hold (xe2x80x9cMOHxe2x80x9d) port or circuit. Such receptionist based systems essentially became the standard for businesses and still are widely used, though the receptionist function, for many business installations, now has been automated.
Being able to essentially immediately inform a caller that her call has reached the correct business and that someone knows her call has been connected to a MOH circuit are effective steps that a business having a key service unit with multiple outside lines can take to assure customers that their calls are important to the business. However, as the volume of business conducted by telephone and the pace at which customers expect to have their business attended to have increased, it has become recognized as an imprudent business practice merely to connect customers to essentially silent MOH circuits that do not provide continuous audio feedback. A basis for this recognition is a general belief that about 60 percent of callers who are connected to a MOH circuit for more than about one minute, will hang up, and of those callers who do hang up, about a third will not call back. Businesses attempt to avert losing customers who cannot immediately be connected to an employee for a conversation by having systems installed that continuously reproduce audio programs that are connected to their key service unit MOH circuits. Initially, the programs were music, without spoken dialog, that were intended to entertain customers while connected to the MOH circuits. Subsequently, audio programs were modified to include periodic verbal messages such as xe2x80x9cYour business is important to us. Please wait and the next available attendant will answer your call.xe2x80x9d Such messages are intended to placate customers as they become anxious that their calls are not being answered more quickly.
Since at least the early, 1980""s, tape players or other similar electronic audio signal reproduction equipment have been used for providing audio programs to key service unit MOH circuits. Under commonly practiced arrangements for using such electronic systems, businesses contract with organizations who employ, for example, radio disc jockeys, or the businesses directly contract with disc jockeys themselves, to record spoken text along with background music on tapes so that the recorded audio programs can be reproduced and input to MOH circuits. Unavoidable problems that plague such arrangements include (1) the limited durability of the media on which produced audio programs may be recorded such as tapes; (2) the time required to pass information back and forth between a business and a producer to prepare a new audio program along with the unavoidable potential errors in both transmitting and receiving information used to create and edit audio programs; and (3) then the logistic delays in delivering audio recordings to business locations where players and key service units are installed.
Now, key service units are digitized and can have digital players connected to the MOH circuits. Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) circuits can be used in such digital players for reproducing prerecorded audio programs, and these digital players can either be included within the physical box containing key service unit electronics or they can be devices physically separated from the key service units with interconnections made to the key service unit MOH circuit jacks. Use of physically durable memory devices such as solid state DRAM semiconductor circuits address the prior problems of recording media durability, but all the other deficiencies of the prior systems are still unaddressed.
An example of a digitized key service unit system is shown in FIG. 1, where a key service unit 10, e.g., a Comdial J1632 Rev. L Digital/Key Service Unit as sold by Comdial Corp., Charlottesville, Va., is installed at a business location and is connected to multiple outside telephone lines 12. Multiple telephone sets 14 are connectable to the outside lines 12 through the key service unit 10. For this particular example, a digital player 16 is not physically incorporated as part of the key service unit 10, but instead, is shown in block fashion as being electrically connected to the key service unit 10 at a MOH jack 18.
As with magnetic tapes, compact discs or other electronic recording media, the DRAMs used in digital players 16, such as the RU/RUF 2700 Series On-Hold Remote Unit sold by Premier Technologies, Inc., Long Lake, Minn., can be used to record electronic signals provided either from systems where the audio portions of live or substantially live performances are processed using microphones or from electronic circuits that produce electronic signals previously recorded for input to memory devices. Significantly, DRAM devices can be used to record and reproduce digital signals at data rates, i.e., bit rates, equal to or even far exceeding those that telephone lines are capable of transmitting, and therefore, the audio programs reproduced using semiconductor memory based systems can consist of signals that provide the best sound quality which telephone lines are capable of transmitting In fact, when DRAM based recording and reproduction systems are connected to telephone lines, it is the signal transmission limitations of telephone lines that are the restricting factors on the quality of reproduced audio programs. Since it is the telephone lines that restrict audio signal quality and not the DRAM circuits, and since callers are connected to key service units by telephone lines, it is not only feasible to use telephone lines to transmit audio program signals to DRAM circuits for recording, but such an arrangement essentially provides the best quality signal format for recording on a DRAM circuit that a key service unit could use to reproduce such signals to a caller connected to the key service unit. These facts have been recognized and relied on for a prior system where a personal computer (PC) 20, utilizing at least a 100 megahertz (MHz) processor and having at least a 16 megabit (MB) random access memory (RAM) capability, is connected via a phone card 22 capable of supporting 8 kilohertz (KHz) bit rate transmissions over telephone lines 24 to a connected digital player 16. Software usable to process and transmit audio program signals via the phone card 22 over the telephone line 24 for remotely activating and recording on the DRAM incorporated in the digital player 16 is loaded on PC 20. An example of such software is Premier""s Studio Automation Software 9.5 for Windows(copyright) 95 that is made available under license from Premier Technologies, Inc., Long Lake, Minn.
The prior apparatus arrangement, including a PC 20, phone card 22, telephone line 24, digital player 16, connected via a MOH jack 18 to a key service unit 10 that interconnects multiple outside telephone lines 12 with telephone sets 14, as shown in FIG. 1 is generally designated by reference numeral 26.
To use the remote system 26, a business having an installed key service unit 10 could enter into an agreement, such as a contract, with a service provider who has access to a PC 20 on which is loaded appropriate software and which is also equipped with a phone card 22 to prepare audio programs for the business. The audio programs that the service provider would then prepare could be remotely recorded on the digital player 16 using a telephone line 24 hookup from the PC 20 with an associated phone card 22.
In concept, such a remote system 26 appears to be both an effective and an efficient arrangement. However, in practice, as with the installation""s of multiple telephone lines to business locations, more than mere installation of the prior available equipment is required to realize efficiencies. True, the installation of the prior available equipment with loaded software included in remote system 26 provides for electronic delivery of recordable audio programs, but such capability alone fails to provide businesses with a system for effectively reliable ordering, creating, editing and approving audio programs on the tight schedules required to meet the urgent schedules of businesses. For example, businesses could require new audio programs to be produced and recorded on their digital players on schedules measured in periods as short as days, not weeks, as was acceptable in the past. The prior systems, such as remote system 26, address only one end of the process, i.e., remote recording, not the entire process of ordering, creating, editing, approving and also recording.
The unsatisfied needs arise predominantly from the types of communications methods available for use between businesses and service providers. Such communications methods may be utilized to link the business customer and service provider merely cross-town or across intercontinental distances, but irrespective of whatever are the involved geographic distances the communications must be reliable, timely and essentially always available in terms of both time and location in order, to meet the ever-increasing needs of modern businesses. The subject matter that must be communicated between businesses and service providers include both textual materials and audio formats, i.e., music and voice styles, the businesses want prepared for initial and follow-on audio programs. Previously available methods of communication that could be used ranged from express courier services (limited by at least the constraints of having to move paper or other physical objects (e.g., tapes, compact discs (CDs,) etc.)), telephones (limited by at least not having a permanent or semi-permanent record available of exactly what was communicated), telecopiers (limited by at least first having to produce paper copies), to e-mail (limited at least by being a non-interactive typographic communications system).
The Present invention provides a method and apparatus for a telecommunications remote recording audio program system (TRRAPS) that is used to provide efficient, effective and secure interactive communications between a business customer having an installed key service unit with a volatile memory device for recording and reproducing audio programs, such as a DRAM equipped digital player, and a service provider who produces audio programs that can be recorded on the digital player. TRRAPS uses the Internet to interconnect the computer and the volatile memory device, that for efficient reference will be labeled a digital player, with its associated key service unit that are all installed at a customer business location with an interconnected personal computer located at the place of business occupied by the service provider. A preferred embodiment of TRRAPS effects the Internet connection between the personal computers at the customer business and service provider locations through an Internet Web server on which software is loaded to provide a secure, interactive Web site for interconnecting the personal computers.
In use for an embodiment, a business customer using a personal computer would connect to the Internet and input a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (http) incorporating an Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to call up the, TRRAPS Web site. To then access the TRRAPS Web site which is a site having secure Web pages and therefore may have an address prefaced with https instead of http, the business customer will need to enter a password that would be purchased by the business customer for that customer""s exclusive use. The TRRAPS Web site operator would assign exclusive passwords to business customers at the times that the business customers pay for the TRRAPS service. After a business customer first accesses the TRRAPS Web site a cookie including the business customer name and password could be created and stored so that the next time the business customer calls up the TRRAPS Web site that information does not have to be again entered in order for the business customer to enter the TRRAPS Web site. In addition to being a secure interactive system, the TRRAPS Web site also interconnects the personal computer being used by the business customer with the personal computer at the service provider location. The business customer who has accessed the TRRAPS Web site can call up the Web page for ordering an intial or an updated audio program. For the situation where an initial audio program is being ordered, the business customer could link to a TRRAPS active Web page and call up a sample blank script that can be selected from a database of stored sample scripts that are categorized by business type, e.g., automotive sales, retail, healthcare, etc. After having selected and called up a sample blank script the business customer using the TRRAPS active Web page can complete, edit and identify the finalized script for linking to the service provider personal computer. In addition to selecting, completing and editing a sample blank script, the customer business employee also can select a type of music, e.g., classical, soft rock, etc. from a database of music selections accessible on another TRRAPS Web page.
Alternatively, the business customer can call up a form questionnaire that the business customer can complete and identify for linking to the service provider personal computer where the provided information would be used by the service provider to create a customized script for the business customer. The customized script then would be entered onto a TRRAPS Web site database with an identification for linking to the business customer personal computer so that the script can be reviewed, edited or approved for production by the business customer.
After an approved script has been loaded on the TRRAPS Web site and a selection or selections of music to be dubbed into an audio program have also been loaded on the TRRAPS Web site by the business customer, the service provider, using the input information, produces an audio program.
In one embodiment of TRRAPS the service provider, using facilities separate from the TRRAPS Web site, produces the approved requested audio program and loads the produced audio program on the TRRAPS Web site where the business customer can preview the produced audio program. Using the TRRAPS Web site the business customer and the service provider can then exchange further edits and audio program updates until the business customer approves the produced audio program and downloads the finalized audio, program onto a digital player.
In another embodiment of TRRAPS the business customer selects, in addition to a music type, a particular voice from a database of voices stored on the TRRAPS Web site. Then, the service provider, using the TRRAPS Web site, initiates a computerized text-to-speech process to translate the text of the approved script into a vocalized reading in the previously selected voice. After a vocalized reading is prepared the selected music is next dubbed into the vocalized reading by the service provider using additional software loaded on a TRRAPS active Web page. This produced audio program is then available on the TRRAPS Web site to be previewed by the business customer. When the business customer has approved a music dubbed audio program, the business customer downloads the approved music dubbed audio program onto a digital player.